The future tasks of electrochemistry: a personal view
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FEATURE ARTICLE
The future tasks of electrochemistry: a personal view Stephen Fletcher 1 Received: 30 May 2020 / Revised: 30 May 2020 / Accepted: 31 May 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Keywords History . Thermodynamics . Quantum theory . Superexchange . Electrochemical potential
It is quite true what the Philosophers say, that life can only be understood backwards. But they forget the second sentence, that it can only be lived forwards. Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813–1855), Journals IV A 164 (1843) First, a big thank you to Prof Scholz for inviting me to contribute to this interesting project. The opportunity to reflect on the future tasks of electrochemistry, and to compare one’s conclusions with others, is welcome indeed. Prof Scholz’s challenge is of course one-third of a much larger problem, which is to understand the past, present, and future of our subject. So, to begin, perhaps it is worth saying a few words about how we reached the present juncture. As a named discipline, “electrochemistry” is now over 200 years old, and after such a long period of time, it has become very difficult for modern readers to comprehend fully how today’s consensus “thought style” has gradually evolved from yesterday’s discordant ideas. As Ludwik Fleck remarked in 1935, “The collective remodeling of an idea has the effect that, after the change in thought style, the earlier problem is no longer completely comprehensible” [1]. Notwithstanding this warning, I believe that a rigorous historical perspective is still achievable given an open mind and a sufficient curiosity. The personal cost (in terms of lost time) is of course quite considerable. But I think it is more than justified by the fact that longterm historical trends provide an excellent guide to future planning. The costs of not planning are huge. History is the key to unlock the future.
* Stephen Fletcher [email protected] 1
The Fletcher Consultancy, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3LU, UK
What resources are needed to develop one’s grasp of scientific history? The most important is surely access to original sources, so it is a matter of some concern that universities and commercial publishers are both currently sequestering large amounts of published research behind swipe-card systems and pay-per-view websites, thereby denying access to many scholars, particularly the poor and the unaffiliated. This is a classic example of “The tragedy of the commons,” in which privileged individuals receive benefit from a communal scheme, while the whole community bears the costs. An important responsibility of the next generation of electrochemists should therefore be to reverse this trend and restore open access to our common heritage. Keeping library doors open is a fundamental duty of all civilized people. Notwithstanding the difficulties caused by diminishing access, one thing that is very clear from the scientific literature is that theoretical electrochemistry has been drastically remodeled at least twice since the seminal work
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